Next Friday (Jan 19th), Palestinian, Israeli and International activists will form a convoy of cars and travel in an act of protest against the new Apartheid decree which prohibits Israelis and foreign nationals from driving Palestinians inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israelis and internationals will transport Palestinians in their cars on roads which are reserved for Jewish settlers only, and in doing so will risk arrest and punishment for their defiance of the racist policy concerning road use.
On November the 19th, Commanding General at Israeli Army Central-Region Command, Ya'ir Naveh, issued an unprecedented decree forbidding Israelis and foreign nationals from driving Palestinians in the West Bank. This decree is the first to impose legal penalties on members of different nations meeting each other in the private realm.
The protest has been inspired by the 'freedom rides' of the early 1960's which helped end segregation in the American South; participating activist groups will include the newly founded Coalition to End the Occupation, and the Popular Committees Against The Wall And Settlements in the Ramallah region.
The new decree reflects the legal definition of the crime of Apartheid by imposing deliberate and targeted institutional discrimination that is designed to strengthen the rule of one national grouping over another. Not even during South Africa's apartheid era was such a decree implemented.
The non-violent action is organized to coincide with the day that this decree comes into place. International and Israeli activists will gather at the El-Al terminal of the Northern railway in Tel Aviv and leave in a convoy of vehicles, gathering Palestinians from the Ramallah area and driving them to the weekly non-violent demonstration against the segregation wall and occupation in Bil'in.
The action is supported by the following Israeli groups: Gush Shalom, Ta'ayush, Sons of Abraham, Olive Tree Movement, Balad, Anarchists Against the Wall, Yesh Din, Yesh Gvul, Coalition of Women for Peace, Hadash, Maki, Banki.
